This is KitchenAid's hottest stand mixer right now - and I'm spreading the word

It's light, bright, and beautiful. What else would you expect from a KitchenAid? I've managed to nab KitchenAid's Colour of the Year stand mixer in butter yellow and have been putting it through its paces ever since. It's buttered me up.

Since KitchenAid announced their colour of the year, I've been dying to get my hands on the deliciously creamy 4.7-litre Artisan Stand Mixer. The sunny yellow has been hailed as "the new neutral" by interior designers and bakers alike, but sometimes its hard to tell through just a picture. I took this to my own kitchen to admire the hue, style it on the counter, and put it through its paces too. 

There's a high bar for what makes the best stand mixers whip, knead, and mix their way into my heart (and kitchen). That bar was only raised by KitchenAid launching their iconic Evergreen KitchenAid (the green one with the wooden bowl). They've set our big boots for the Butter KitchenAid to fill, but it's baked its way into my favourites.

Specifications

Unboxing

The Butter KitchenAid Artisan box looks and feels identical to all the others. You’ll receive an owner's manual, which also handles the warranty, your stand mixer, and the accessories. It's all very simple. 

Your stand mixer will be nestled inside some polystyrene. This is perhaps the greater shame of the whole KitchenAid experience because I think brands need to be making an effort towards eco-friendly packaging. It’s almost impossible to dispose of polystyrene whilst feeling good about the environment. However, the KitchenAid arrives looking beautiful, so I can’t fault the polystyrene too much. It did the job.

I said that the box looks identical to all other KitchenAids, but what’s inside is surprisingly different. There’s the very obvious and very beautiful new colour — more on that later — as well as your basic 4.7-litre stainless steel bowl (which comes with a handle), your whisk, dough hook, splash guard, and a flex edge beater. The latter two are part of the premium Artisan packages, so they’d be a treat in and of themselves, but that’s not where it ends. 

KitchenAid sends a smaller, 2.8-litre bowl that you can use for mini side jobs as well as a pastry cutter (also known as a pastry blender) attachment. The small bowl stacks neatly inside the larger bowl and the pastry cutter is the best-kept secret in the world of stand mixer attachments. I make my best pastry with this clever little device. We’ll talk more about it later though. 

Who would it suit?

I’ve covered who the KitchenAid Artisan suits in my review of their standard model. The same applies here. It’s the perfect stand mixer for your average home baker who's looking to invest in a versatile, powerful, and robust stand mixer. The difference between the average KitchenAid Artisan and the KitchenAid Colour of the Year Artisan is that this has an extra wow factor when it comes to style. 

KitchenAid is already a baker’s dozen points in front of all the other brands for how it looks, but the Butter hue takes the biscuit. It’s bright and sunny without being garish. The yellow, which I was concerned would look garish, oozes luxury. It's bright, but happy, just like butter. So that’s the style-conscious bakers more than covered. 

Buying the Colour of the Year also adds an element of exclusivity and desirability to a stand mixer. These colours are limited editions, on offer for only a year and any enthusiastic baker will know just how special they are. If you’re going to make the investment in a KitchenAid, I think it’s worth going for something a little extra special.

There’s another element to this that makes it more versatile than your average stand mixer and that’s the accessories. Not only do you get the pastry cutter (also known as a pastry blender) you get a smaller bowl and all the premium KitchenAid accessories. Any keen bakers will know that getting those extra accessories is an exciting expansion for your skill set.

I’m well aware that there will be plenty of people who don’t want to pay more for a special colour and some extra accessories and that’s okay. This is an expensive stand mixer, so it’s only really worth the extra cheddar if you want to invest in your baking. There are cheaper options with the same capacity and a little less style — you can save the extra money for some nice ingredients.

What is it like to use?

If you’ve used a KitchenAid Artisan before, you’re already a star baker here. This is identical to the other Artisans. The head tilts back for you to lock the bowl into place. Once that’s in, you can push in your attachment and lock the head down. The speed settings range from 1-10 and they’re controlled by the dial. It’s all wonderfully easy, even if you’ve never used a KitchenAid before. 

Test 1: cake

Stand mixers and cake batters go hand in hand. Not only is this one of the most popular recipes for your mixer, it’s also a great test of how well the stand mixer can cream butter and sugar and then integrate wet and dry ingredients. I’ve never been given the flex edge beater without a standard all-metal beater, but I really didn’t miss it at all. The useful silicone deftly scrapes all the mixture off the edges of the bowl, so I didn’t have any lumps or clumps that sat unmixed — no, not even at the bottom. 

Even though my butter was relatively solid, the KitchenAid powered through, creating a light, fluffy mix. Then, add I added the eggs, flour, cocoa and my other ingredients, the beater kept mixing them all in really well. Of course, I adjusted the speeds between settings and really enjoyed the versatility that the KitchenAid offered up. My cake ended up being wonderfully light and delicious, so my only complaint is that I ate too much cake after testing. It’s not a bad life. 

Test 2: bread

The next natural test for any stand mixer is how well it can make bread dough. My normal loaf uses 500g of flour and that’s enough to feed my family. I know the Artisan can more than handle this, so I upped the flour to 800g. Had I bought a bigger bag of flour, I wouldn’t have done a full kilogram and I think the Artisan could take it. Even with 800g the Artisan kneaded my dough into a springy and elastic ball in less than five minutes (four minutes thirty, if we’re counting). You can see that I didn’t have any residue at the bottom or around the sides: it’s a clean sweep from the KitchenAid.

Test 3: whipped cream

There’s another test after this one, but normally the whipped cream is the last round that I put stand mixers through. I tested out the smaller bowl here with a small amount of vegan cream and had it whipped into stiff peaks in one minute and thirty-four seconds. Vegan cream is notoriously fickle, so that speed and result is almost unheard of. 

Naturally, I also did a test with normal double cream in the big bowl and was pleased to see the same results. The cream became thick and pillowy within the minute and I kept the stand mixer running for another thirty seconds to get an ultra-dramatic effect. If it had been left for much longer, I’d be getting butter. I suppose that would have been quite appropriate given that the colour of this KitchenAid. 

Test 4: pastry

I don’t always formally test pastry in a stand mixer, but KitchenAid gives you a pastry cutter attachment. This is a true gem for lots of reasons, namely because you can use butter that’s straight out of the fridge to make ultra buttery, flaky pastry. The metal bars mimic rubbing butter into flour, but without your body heat from your fingers everything stays a lot cooler. There’s nothing quite like it.

I already have one of these at home, so I’m no stranger to how they work. However, for the purposes of this review, I made a sweet shortcrust. As expected, this was beautiful. It was delicate and crumbly, exactly as you would expect from a professional, except in this instance the baker goes by the name of KitchenAid.

Cleaning and maintenance

All the KitchenAid bowls and accessories are dishwasher safe, which makes the clean up extremely easy. I just loaded everything into the dishwasher and set it running. All the parts came out sparking clean: simple. 

If you’ve shelled out £699 for your KitchenAid, it’s likely that you’re going to want it to last a little while. That’s why, normally, I try to wash the parts by hand. This puts a lot less wear and tear on the accessories and it’ll keep them in better shape for longer. You don’t have to, but I call it good practice. 

The main body of the stand mixer isn’t dishwasher safe, obviously, but you can wipe it clean with a damp cloth. I was concerned that the buttery yellow would show up a multitude of food, but even after testing, it looked neat. The worst damage was a thin layer of flour from when I had poured it into the bowl. 

The two bowls, once clean, will stack inside each other and you can pop all the accessories inside too. It’s not the most elegant storage solution — I’m yet to find a neat way to store my KitchenAid accessories — but it does the job. 

How does it compare?

As you'll have guessed from the name, the KitchenAid Artisan Colour of the Year is almost identical to the KitchenAid Artisan. You can buy the same silhouette for between £449-549 (for the extra accessory Artisan mixer), whereas the Butter model is £699. The reason it's more expensive is the extra bowl, extra pastry cutter accessory, and the limited-edition colour. When you put it like that, all KitchenAid stand mixers are expensive and this actually makes sense if you'd use all the extras.

If you're looking for a stand mixer that's a little different to the KitchenAid, I'd recommend the Bosch Series 6 Stand Mixer. It's classified as a 'hybrid' stand mixer, which means that it has other extras integrated into the design. In the instance of the Bosch, 'extras' understates what's on offer. The Bosch integrates scales (which differentiate between different fluids and flours), a timer, pre-sets for blending and making ice cream, and much much more. So, if you're an adventurous baker looking for something as robust as a KitchenAid, this is a great investment. Performance-wise, it's almost identical to the Artisan and it's half the price. My only concern with the Bosch is that if the screen breaks, so does your bake.

Should you buy it?

If you want a stylish stand mixer that will become one-of-a-kind, this is perfect. It's an investment, there's no denying that, but I'd be happy to dip a finger into KitchenAid's buttery beauty.

How we test

At woman&home, we have a rigorous process for how we test some mixers not in the least because I am a keen baker so I’ll take any excuse to make cakes bread and whipped cream and call it work. Every stand mixer that I review gets at least two weeks on my countertop. Initially, I’ll put it through three tests that every stand mixer has to go through. Make a cake with the beating attachment; I whip cream with the whisk; and I need bread with the dough hook. This gives me a good gauge of how good the stand mixer is on the basics. With that in mind, I’ll move on to more adventurous bakes and cakes to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the stand mixer. By the end of my test, I'll have a good idea of who this suits and where other stand mixes are better. I’ll compare different models to give you a good gauge of what this is like in terms of value and where it sits in the market.